America Without a Middle Class--It's Not Far Away As You Might Think
By Elizabeth Warren, AlterNet
Posted on December 5, 2009, Printed on December 7, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/144388/
Can you imagine an America without a strong middle class? If you can, would it still be America
as we know it?
Today, one in five Americans is unemployed, underemployed or just plain out of work. One in nine families can't make the minimum payment on their credit cards. One in eight mortgages is in default or foreclosure. One in eight Americans is on food stamps. More than 120,000 families are filing for bankruptcy every month. The economic crisis has wiped more than $5 trillion from pensions and savings, has left family balance sheets upside down, and threatens to put ten million homeowners
out on the street.
Families have survived the ups and downs of economic booms and busts for a long time, but the fall-behind during the busts has gotten worse while the surge-ahead during the booms has stalled
out. In the boom of the 1960s, for example, median family income jumped by 33% (adjusted for inflation). But the boom of the 2000s resulted in an almost-imperceptible 1.6% increase for the typical family. While Wall Street executives and others who owned lots of stock celebrated how good the recovery was for them, middle class families were left empty-handed.
The crisis facing the middle class started more than a generation ago. Even as productivity rose, the wages of the average fully-employed male have been flat since the 1970s.
But core expenses kept going up. By the early 2000s, families were spending twice as much (adjusted for inflation) on mortgages than they did a generation ago -- for a house that was, on average, only ten percent bigger and 25 years older. They also had to pay twice as much to hang on to their health insurance.
To cope, millions of families put a second parent into the workforce. But higher housing and medical costs combined with new expenses for child care, the costs of a second car to get to work and higher taxes combined to squeeze families even harder. Even with two incomes, they tightened their belts.
Families today spend less than they did a generation ago on food, clothing, furniture, appliances,
and other flexible purchases -- but it hasn't been enough to save them. Today's families have spent
all their income, have spent all their savings, and have gone into debt to pay for college, to cover serious medical problems, and just to stay afloat a little while longer.
Through it all, families never asked for a handout from anyone, especially Washington. They were left to go on their own, working harder, squeezing nickels, and taking care of themselves. But their economic boats have been taking on water for years, and now the crisis has swamped millions of middle class families.
The contrast with the big banks could not be sharper. While the middle class has been caught in an economic vise, the financial industry that was supposed to serve them has prospered at their expense. Consumer banking -- selling debt to middle class families -- has been a gold mine. Boring banking has given way to creative banking, and the industry has generated tens of billions of dollars annually in fees made possible by deceptive and dangerous terms buried in the fine print of opaque, incomprehensible, and largely unregulated contracts.
And when various forms of this creative banking triggered economic crisis, the banks went to Washington for a handout. All the while, top executives kept their jobs and retained their bonuses. Even though the tax dollars that supported the bailout came largely from middle class families -- from people already working hard to make ends meet -- the beneficiaries of those tax dollars are now lobbying Congress to preserve the rules that had let those huge banks feast off the middle class.
Pundits talk about "populist rage" as a way to trivialize the anger and fear coursing through the middle class. But they have it wrong. Families understand with crystalline clarity that the rules they have played by are not the same rules that govern Wall Street. They understand that no American family is "too big to fail." They recognize that business models have shifted and that big banks are pulling out all the stops to squeeze families and boost revenues. They understand that their economic security is under assault and that leaving consumer debt effectively unregulated does not work.
Families are ready for change. According to polls, large majorities of Americans have welcomed the Obama Administration's proposal for a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA). The CFPA would be answerable to consumers -- not to banks and not to Wall Street. The agency would have the power to end tricks-and-traps pricing and to start leveling the playing field so that consumers have the tools they need to compare prices and manage their money. The response of the big banks has been to swing into action against the Agency, fighting with all their lobbying might to keep business-as-usual. They are pulling out all the stops to kill the agency before it is born. And if those practices crush millions more families, who cares -- so long as the profits stay high and the bonuses keep coming.
America today has plenty of rich and super-rich. But it has far more families who did all the right things, but who still have no real security. Going to college and finding a good job no longer guarantee economic safety. Paying for a child's education and setting aside enough for a decent retirement have become distant dreams. Tens of millions of once-secure middle class families now live paycheck to paycheck, watching as their debts pile up and worrying about whether a pink slip or a bad diagnosis will send them hurtling over an economic cliff.
America without a strong middle class? Unthinkable, but the once-solid foundation is shaking.
Elizabeth Warren is the Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where she teaches contract law, bankruptcy and commercial law. Her latest book is All Your Worth.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Where are we?
From John Hussman of Hussman Funds, who has been right about everything, thus far. A ten minute read that offers rational perspective in an irrational world. Enjoy!
Reckless Myopia
John P. Hussman, Ph.D.
All rights reserved and actively enforced.
Reprint Policy
I was wrong.
Not about the implosion of the credit markets, which I urgently warned about in 2007 and early 2008. Not about the recession, which we shifted to anticipating in November 2007. Not about the plunge in the stock market, which erased the entire 2002-2007 market gain, which was no surprise. Not about the “ebb and flow” of short-term data, which I frequently noted could produce a powerful (though perhaps abruptly terminated) market advance even in the face of dangerous longer-term cross-currents. I expect not even about the “surprising” second wave of credit distress that we can expect as we move into 2010.
From a long-term perspective, my record is very comfortable. But clearly, I was wrong about the extent to which Wall Street would respond to the ebb-and-flow in the economic data – particularly the obvious and temporary lull in the mortgage reset schedule between March and November 2009 – and drive stocks to the point where they are not only overvalued again, but strikingly dependent on a sustained economic recovery and the achievement and maintenance of record profit margins in the years ahead.
I should have assumed that Wall Street's tendency toward reckless myopia – ingrained over the past decade – would return at the first sign of even temporary stability. The eagerness of investors to chase prevailing trends, and their unwillingness to concern themselves with predictable longer-term risks, drove a successive series of speculative advances and crashes during the past decade – the dot-com bubble, the tech bubble, the mortgage bubble, the private-equity bubble, and the commodities bubble. And here we are again.
We face two possible states of the world. One is a world in which our economic problems are largely solved, profits are on the mend, and things will soon be back to normal, except for a lot of unemployed people whose fate is, let's face it, of no concern to Wall Street. The other is a world that has enjoyed a brief intermission prior to a terrific second act in which an even larger share of credit losses will be taken, and in which the range of policy choices will be more restricted because we've already issued more government liabilities than a banana republic, and will steeply debase our currency if we do it again. It is not at all clear that the recent data have removed any uncertainty as to which world we are in.
Taking the weighted average outcome for the two states of the world still produces a poor average return/risk tradeoff. Taking the weighted average investment position for the two states of the world is somewhat more constructive. As I noted several weeks ago, I have adapted our weightings accordingly. As a result, we have been trading around a modest positive net exposure, increasing it slightly on market weakness, and clipping it on strength, as is our discipline. Currently, the Strategic Growth Fund has a net exposure to market fluctuations of less than 10%, but enough “curvature” (through index options) that our exposure to market risk will automatically become more muted on market weakness and more positive on market advances, allowing us to buy weakness and sell strength without material concern about the (increasing) risk of a market collapse.
There is no chance, even in hindsight (“could have, would have, should have” stuff) that I would have responded to the existing evidence in recent months with more than a moderate exposure to market risk during some portion of the advance since March. But our year-to-date returns might now be into a second digit had I recognized that investors have learned utterly nothing from the bubbles and collapses of the past decade. That recognition might have encouraged a greater weight on trend-following measures versus fundamentals, valuations, price-volume sponsorship, and other factors.
Still, our stock selections continue to perform well relative to the market, our risks remain well-managed through a substantial (though not full) hedge, and our investment approach has nicely outperformed the S&P 500 over complete market cycles, with substantially less downside risk than a passive investment approach. We have implemented some modest changes to improve our potential to benefit from (even ill-advised) speculative runs, but we've done fine nonetheless, and we can sleep nights.
Whether or not I have focused too much on probable “second-wave” credit risks is something we will find out in the quarters ahead – my record of economic analysis is strong enough that a “miss” on that front would be an outlier. What I do think is that over the past decade, investors (including people who hold themselves out as investment professionals) have become far more susceptible to reckless myopia than I would have liked to believe. They have become speculators up to the point of disaster.
Frankly, I've come to believe that the markets are no longer reliable or sound discounting mechanisms. The repeated cycle of bubbles and predictable crashes over the recent decade makes that clear. Rather, investors appear to respond to emerging risks no more than about three months ahead of time. Worse, far too many analysts and strategists appear to discount the future only in the most pedestrian way, by taking year-ahead earnings estimates at face value, and mindlessly applying some arbitrary and historically inconsistent multiple to them.
This is utterly different from true discounting – which does not rely on multiples, but instead carefully traces out the likely path of future revenues, profit margins, cash flows and earnings over time, and explicitly discounts expected payouts and probable terminal values back at an appropriate rate of return. That's what we actually do here. Talking in terms of multiples can make the process easier to explain, and can be a reasonable approach to the market as a whole if earnings are normalized properly, but ultimately, an investment security is a claim to a long-term stream of cash flows. It is not simply a blind multiple to the latest analyst estimate.
Fortunately, the evidence suggests that the long-term returns to a careful discounting approach tend to be strong even if investors repeatedly behave in speculative and short-sighted ways. This is because long-term returns are fully determined by the stream of cash flows actually received by investors over time, and because inappropriate valuations ultimately tend to mean-revert. In the face of speculative noise, the long-term returns from a proper discounting approach may not capture as much speculative return as might be possible, but over time, many of those speculative swings tend to wash out anyway.
In part, the market's increasing propensity toward speculation reflects the increasing lack of fiscal and monetary discipline from our leaders. Policy makers who seek quick fixes and could care less about long-term consequences undoubtedly encourage investors to embrace the same value system. Paul Volcker was the last Fed Chairman to have any sense that discipline and the acceptance of temporary discomfort was good for the nation.
Our current Fed Chairman's voice literally quivers in response to the phrase “bank failure,” even though in the present context, a bank failure implies none of the disorganized outcomes that characterized the Great Depression. It simply means that the bondholders take a loss and the remaining part of the institution survives intact as a “whole bank” entity (and can be sold or re-issued back to public ownership, less the debt to bondholders, as such). The same outcome would have been possible with Lehman had the FDIC been granted authority from Congress to take conservatorship of a non-bank financial entity.
In my estimation, there is still close to an 80% probability (Bayes' Rule) that a second market plunge and economic downturn will unfold during the coming year. This is not certainty, but the evidence that we've observed in the equity market, labor market, and credit markets to-date is simply much more consistent with the recent advance being a component of a more drawn-out and painful deleveraging cycle. Meanwhile, valuations are clearly unfavorable here, and even under the “typical post-war recovery” scenario, we are observing an increasing number of internal divergences and non-confirmations in market action.
As Gluskin Sheff chief economist David Rosenberg noted last week, “Even if the recession is over, the historical record shows that downturns induced by asset deflation and credit contraction are different than a garden-variety recession induced by Fed tightening and excessive manufacturing inventories since the former typically induce a secular shift in behavior and attitudes towards debt, asset allocation, savings, discretionary spending and homeownership. The latter fades more quickly.
“This is why people didn't figure out that it was the Great Depression until two years after the worst point in the crisis in the 1930s; and why it took decades, not months, quarters or even years, for the complete transition to the next sustainable economic expansion and bull market.
“Mortgage applications for new home purchases hit a 12-year low in the middle of November (down 22% in the past month!), fully two weeks after the Administration said it was going to not only extend but expand the program to include higher-income trade-up buyers. Once again, there is minimal demand for autos and housing, and that is partly because the market is still saturated with both of these credit-sensitive big-ticket items after an unprecedented credit and consumer bubble that went absolutely parabolic in the seven years prior to the collapse in the financial markets an asset values. We are probably not even one-third of the way through this deleveraging cycle. Tread carefully.”
Andrew Smithers, one of the few other analysts who foresaw the credit implosion and remains a credible voice now, concurred last week in an interview with my friend Kate Welling (a former Barrons' editor now at Weeden & Company): “The good news so far is that the stock market got down to pretty much fair value or even, possibly, a tickle below it, at its March bottom. But now it has gone up… we probably have a market which is, roughly, 40% overpriced. In order to assess value, it is necessary either to calculate the level at which the EPS would be if profits were neither depressed nor elevated, or to use a metric of value which does not depend on profits. The cyclically adjusted P/E (CAPE) normalizes EPS by averaging them over 10 years. It thus follows the first of those two possible methods. Using even longer time periods has advantages, particularly as EPS have been exceptionally volatile in recent years - and using longer time periods raises the current measured degree of overvaluation. The other methodology we use measures stock market value without reference to profits: the q ratio. It compares the market capitalization of companies with their net worth, also adjusted to current prices. The validity of both of these approaches can be tested and is robust under testing - and they produce results that agree. Currently, both q and CAPE are saying that the U.S. stock market is about 40% overvalued.”
In the chart below, the current data point would be about 0.4, not as extreme as we observed in 1929, 2000, or 2007 of course, but equal to or beyond what we've observed at virtually every other market peak in history. This aligns well with our own analysis, where as I've noted in recent weeks, the S&P 500 is priced to deliver one of the weakest 10-year total returns in history except for the (ultimately disappointing) period since the mid-1990's.
One of the fascinating aspects of the past few months is the lack of equilibrium thinking with respect to what happened to the trillions of dollars in government money that has been spent to defend the bondholders of mismanaged financial companies. Almost by definition, money given to corporations will show up most quickly as improvements in corporate earnings, and then slightly later, as executive compensation. A few pieces came across my desk last week, hailing the ability of the corporate sector to bounce back from the recent economic downturn even though revenues have continued to suffer and employment has been steeply cut. Why is this a surprise? Where else could the money have gone? Labor compensation? It is truly mind-numbing that a moment after a temporary surge of trillions of dollars, borrowed and tossed out of a helicopter (though to specific corporations and private beneficiaries), analysts would hail a subsequent improvement in corporate results as evidence of “resilience.”
What matters is sustainability, and unfortunately, it is clear that credit continues to collapse. Banks are contracting their loan portfolios at a record rate, according to the latest FDIC Quarterly Banking Profile. Even so, new delinquencies continue to accelerate faster than loan loss reserves. Tier 1 capital looked quite good last quarter, as one would expect from the combination of a large new issuance of bank securities, combined with an easing of accounting rules to allow “substantial discretion” with respect to credit losses. The list of problem institutions is still rising exponentially. Overall, earnings and capital ratios have enjoyed a reprieve in the past couple of quarters, but delinquencies have not, and all evidence points to an acceleration as we move into 2010.
Urgent Policy Implications
From a policy standpoint, it is effectively too late to forestall further foreclosures absent explicit losses to creditors. The best policy option now is to make sure that the second wave does not result in a debasement of the U.S. dollar. The way to do that is to require three things:
First, the FDIC should be given regulatory authority to take non-bank financials into conservatorship the way they should have been able to do with Bear Stearns and Lehman. If this authority had existed in 2008, Bear's bondholders would not now stand to get 100% of their money back, with interest, as they presently do, and Lehman's disorganized liquidation would have been completely unnecessary. As I've noted before, the problem with Lehman was not that it went bankrupt, but that it went bankrupt in a disorganized way. If the FDIC had authority over insolvent non-bank financials and bank holding companies, it could wipe out equity and an appropriate amount of bondholder capital, and sell the fully-functioning residual to an acquirer, as is typically done with failing banks, without any loss to depositors or customers.
Second, bank capital requirements should be altered to require a substantial portion of bank debt to be of a form that automatically converts to equity in the event of capital inadequacy. This would force losses onto bondholders, rather than onto taxpayers. This policy adjustment is urgent – we have perhaps a few months to get this right.
Finally, Congress should be clear that government funds will be available only to protect the interests of depositors, not bondholders. Specifically, any funds provided by the government should be contingent on the ability to exert a senior claim to bondholders in the event of subsequent bankruptcy, even if a category is created to allow those funds to be counted as “capital” for purposes of satisfying capital requirements prior to such bankruptcy. Government-provided capital should be subordinate only to depositor claims, if equity and bondholder capital ultimately proves insufficient to meet those obligations.
Since early 2008, beginning with the provision of non-recourse funding in the Bear Stearns debacle, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury have repeatedly allocated or implicitly obligated public funds to defend the bondholders of mismanaged financial companies. This has included the outright and non-recourse purchase of nearly a trillion dollars in mortgage securities that have no explicit guarantee by the U.S. government. By purchasing these securities outright (rather than through a well-defined repurchase agreement), the Fed is effectively obligating the U.S. government to either guarantee them or to absorb any future losses.
Aside from the fraction of bailout funding that was specifically allocated by Congress through legislation, these actions represent an unconstitutional breach into enumerated spending powers that are the domain of the elected members of Congress alone. The issue here is not whether the Fed should be independent from political influence. The issue is the constitutionality of the Fed's actions. The discretion that it has exerted over the past two years crosses the line into prerogatives reserved for Congress. That line needs to be clarified sooner rather than later.
Emphatically, the trillions of dollars spent over the past year were not in the interest of protecting bank depositors or the general public. They went to protect bank bondholders. Instead of taking appropriate losses on those bonds (which financed reckless mortgage lending), those bonds are happily priced near their face value, for the benefit of private individuals, thanks to an equivalent issuance of U.S. Treasury debt. But that's not enough. Outside of a very narrow set of institutions that are subject to compensation limits, just watch how much of the public's money – which benefitted several major investment banks following a very direct route – gets allocated to Wall Street bonuses in the next few weeks.
Market Climate
As of last week, the Market Climate for stocks remained characterized by unfavorable valuations and mixed market action. The market remains significantly overbought on an intermediate-term basis, and we've seen increasing divergences from breadth, small and mid-cap stocks, trading volume, and other internals, which have lagged the most recent advance in the S&P 500 and other cap-weighted indices.
The prospect of a debt-repayment “standstill” from Dubai prompted some weakness in foreign markets that spilled over to the U.S. on Friday. This was interesting given that David Faber reported the issue on CNBC on Wednesday, to no reaction. Importantly, the payment difficulties do not stem from oil revenues, but largely from tourism and financial activity, as those are Dubai's chief industries (Dubai is home to the tallest building and the largest man-made islands in the world, for example). From that standpoint, it is difficult to imagine much in the way of contagion as a result of Dubai's difficulties.
Whatever shock the market will get from left field is likely to come from larger financial or geopolitical risks. The market for credit default swaps bears watching, but thus far we haven't observed spikes to indicate that something major is imminent. Unfortunately, as I noted earlier, investors have earned an “F” for vigilance in recent years, so our lead time on new difficulties may be shorter than we might like.
In any event, I'm pleased with the overall behavior of our stock holdings, and I expect that we'll have plenty of opportunity to increase our exposure to market fluctuations at more appropriate valuations. Presently, we've got a small amount of exposure to market fluctuations, but not enough to cause any material difficulties if the market experiences some trouble. The largest source of day-to-day fluctuations remains the difference in performance between the stocks we hold long and the indices we use to hedge. That source of risk has also been the primary contributor to returns over the life of the Fund.
In bonds, the Market Climate was characterized last week by moderately unfavorable yield levels and generally favorable yield pressures. We saw a good example of how the market is inclined to respond to fresh credit concerns last week, with upward pressure on the U.S. dollar and U.S. Treasuries, and downward pressure on foreign currencies and commodities. While I continue to believe that the dollar faces substantial risk of further erosion in its exchange value, as well as a near doubling of the CPI over the coming decade or so (both reflecting the massive increase in U.S. government liabilities in recent years), those prospects are not likely to emerge until risk-aversion about credit default materially abates. Credit concerns typically create a spike in demand for default-free assets such as U.S. government liabilities, so even though there is a much larger float than is likely to be sustained over time without inflation as the ultimate outcome, credit concerns tend to support the value of these liabilities and hence mutes immediate inflation pressures (essentially, monetary velocity declines as these liabilities are sought as a default-free store of value).
Reckless Myopia
John P. Hussman, Ph.D.
All rights reserved and actively enforced.
Reprint Policy
I was wrong.
Not about the implosion of the credit markets, which I urgently warned about in 2007 and early 2008. Not about the recession, which we shifted to anticipating in November 2007. Not about the plunge in the stock market, which erased the entire 2002-2007 market gain, which was no surprise. Not about the “ebb and flow” of short-term data, which I frequently noted could produce a powerful (though perhaps abruptly terminated) market advance even in the face of dangerous longer-term cross-currents. I expect not even about the “surprising” second wave of credit distress that we can expect as we move into 2010.
From a long-term perspective, my record is very comfortable. But clearly, I was wrong about the extent to which Wall Street would respond to the ebb-and-flow in the economic data – particularly the obvious and temporary lull in the mortgage reset schedule between March and November 2009 – and drive stocks to the point where they are not only overvalued again, but strikingly dependent on a sustained economic recovery and the achievement and maintenance of record profit margins in the years ahead.
I should have assumed that Wall Street's tendency toward reckless myopia – ingrained over the past decade – would return at the first sign of even temporary stability. The eagerness of investors to chase prevailing trends, and their unwillingness to concern themselves with predictable longer-term risks, drove a successive series of speculative advances and crashes during the past decade – the dot-com bubble, the tech bubble, the mortgage bubble, the private-equity bubble, and the commodities bubble. And here we are again.
We face two possible states of the world. One is a world in which our economic problems are largely solved, profits are on the mend, and things will soon be back to normal, except for a lot of unemployed people whose fate is, let's face it, of no concern to Wall Street. The other is a world that has enjoyed a brief intermission prior to a terrific second act in which an even larger share of credit losses will be taken, and in which the range of policy choices will be more restricted because we've already issued more government liabilities than a banana republic, and will steeply debase our currency if we do it again. It is not at all clear that the recent data have removed any uncertainty as to which world we are in.
Taking the weighted average outcome for the two states of the world still produces a poor average return/risk tradeoff. Taking the weighted average investment position for the two states of the world is somewhat more constructive. As I noted several weeks ago, I have adapted our weightings accordingly. As a result, we have been trading around a modest positive net exposure, increasing it slightly on market weakness, and clipping it on strength, as is our discipline. Currently, the Strategic Growth Fund has a net exposure to market fluctuations of less than 10%, but enough “curvature” (through index options) that our exposure to market risk will automatically become more muted on market weakness and more positive on market advances, allowing us to buy weakness and sell strength without material concern about the (increasing) risk of a market collapse.
There is no chance, even in hindsight (“could have, would have, should have” stuff) that I would have responded to the existing evidence in recent months with more than a moderate exposure to market risk during some portion of the advance since March. But our year-to-date returns might now be into a second digit had I recognized that investors have learned utterly nothing from the bubbles and collapses of the past decade. That recognition might have encouraged a greater weight on trend-following measures versus fundamentals, valuations, price-volume sponsorship, and other factors.
Still, our stock selections continue to perform well relative to the market, our risks remain well-managed through a substantial (though not full) hedge, and our investment approach has nicely outperformed the S&P 500 over complete market cycles, with substantially less downside risk than a passive investment approach. We have implemented some modest changes to improve our potential to benefit from (even ill-advised) speculative runs, but we've done fine nonetheless, and we can sleep nights.
Whether or not I have focused too much on probable “second-wave” credit risks is something we will find out in the quarters ahead – my record of economic analysis is strong enough that a “miss” on that front would be an outlier. What I do think is that over the past decade, investors (including people who hold themselves out as investment professionals) have become far more susceptible to reckless myopia than I would have liked to believe. They have become speculators up to the point of disaster.
Frankly, I've come to believe that the markets are no longer reliable or sound discounting mechanisms. The repeated cycle of bubbles and predictable crashes over the recent decade makes that clear. Rather, investors appear to respond to emerging risks no more than about three months ahead of time. Worse, far too many analysts and strategists appear to discount the future only in the most pedestrian way, by taking year-ahead earnings estimates at face value, and mindlessly applying some arbitrary and historically inconsistent multiple to them.
This is utterly different from true discounting – which does not rely on multiples, but instead carefully traces out the likely path of future revenues, profit margins, cash flows and earnings over time, and explicitly discounts expected payouts and probable terminal values back at an appropriate rate of return. That's what we actually do here. Talking in terms of multiples can make the process easier to explain, and can be a reasonable approach to the market as a whole if earnings are normalized properly, but ultimately, an investment security is a claim to a long-term stream of cash flows. It is not simply a blind multiple to the latest analyst estimate.
Fortunately, the evidence suggests that the long-term returns to a careful discounting approach tend to be strong even if investors repeatedly behave in speculative and short-sighted ways. This is because long-term returns are fully determined by the stream of cash flows actually received by investors over time, and because inappropriate valuations ultimately tend to mean-revert. In the face of speculative noise, the long-term returns from a proper discounting approach may not capture as much speculative return as might be possible, but over time, many of those speculative swings tend to wash out anyway.
In part, the market's increasing propensity toward speculation reflects the increasing lack of fiscal and monetary discipline from our leaders. Policy makers who seek quick fixes and could care less about long-term consequences undoubtedly encourage investors to embrace the same value system. Paul Volcker was the last Fed Chairman to have any sense that discipline and the acceptance of temporary discomfort was good for the nation.
Our current Fed Chairman's voice literally quivers in response to the phrase “bank failure,” even though in the present context, a bank failure implies none of the disorganized outcomes that characterized the Great Depression. It simply means that the bondholders take a loss and the remaining part of the institution survives intact as a “whole bank” entity (and can be sold or re-issued back to public ownership, less the debt to bondholders, as such). The same outcome would have been possible with Lehman had the FDIC been granted authority from Congress to take conservatorship of a non-bank financial entity.
In my estimation, there is still close to an 80% probability (Bayes' Rule) that a second market plunge and economic downturn will unfold during the coming year. This is not certainty, but the evidence that we've observed in the equity market, labor market, and credit markets to-date is simply much more consistent with the recent advance being a component of a more drawn-out and painful deleveraging cycle. Meanwhile, valuations are clearly unfavorable here, and even under the “typical post-war recovery” scenario, we are observing an increasing number of internal divergences and non-confirmations in market action.
As Gluskin Sheff chief economist David Rosenberg noted last week, “Even if the recession is over, the historical record shows that downturns induced by asset deflation and credit contraction are different than a garden-variety recession induced by Fed tightening and excessive manufacturing inventories since the former typically induce a secular shift in behavior and attitudes towards debt, asset allocation, savings, discretionary spending and homeownership. The latter fades more quickly.
“This is why people didn't figure out that it was the Great Depression until two years after the worst point in the crisis in the 1930s; and why it took decades, not months, quarters or even years, for the complete transition to the next sustainable economic expansion and bull market.
“Mortgage applications for new home purchases hit a 12-year low in the middle of November (down 22% in the past month!), fully two weeks after the Administration said it was going to not only extend but expand the program to include higher-income trade-up buyers. Once again, there is minimal demand for autos and housing, and that is partly because the market is still saturated with both of these credit-sensitive big-ticket items after an unprecedented credit and consumer bubble that went absolutely parabolic in the seven years prior to the collapse in the financial markets an asset values. We are probably not even one-third of the way through this deleveraging cycle. Tread carefully.”
Andrew Smithers, one of the few other analysts who foresaw the credit implosion and remains a credible voice now, concurred last week in an interview with my friend Kate Welling (a former Barrons' editor now at Weeden & Company): “The good news so far is that the stock market got down to pretty much fair value or even, possibly, a tickle below it, at its March bottom. But now it has gone up… we probably have a market which is, roughly, 40% overpriced. In order to assess value, it is necessary either to calculate the level at which the EPS would be if profits were neither depressed nor elevated, or to use a metric of value which does not depend on profits. The cyclically adjusted P/E (CAPE) normalizes EPS by averaging them over 10 years. It thus follows the first of those two possible methods. Using even longer time periods has advantages, particularly as EPS have been exceptionally volatile in recent years - and using longer time periods raises the current measured degree of overvaluation. The other methodology we use measures stock market value without reference to profits: the q ratio. It compares the market capitalization of companies with their net worth, also adjusted to current prices. The validity of both of these approaches can be tested and is robust under testing - and they produce results that agree. Currently, both q and CAPE are saying that the U.S. stock market is about 40% overvalued.”
In the chart below, the current data point would be about 0.4, not as extreme as we observed in 1929, 2000, or 2007 of course, but equal to or beyond what we've observed at virtually every other market peak in history. This aligns well with our own analysis, where as I've noted in recent weeks, the S&P 500 is priced to deliver one of the weakest 10-year total returns in history except for the (ultimately disappointing) period since the mid-1990's.
One of the fascinating aspects of the past few months is the lack of equilibrium thinking with respect to what happened to the trillions of dollars in government money that has been spent to defend the bondholders of mismanaged financial companies. Almost by definition, money given to corporations will show up most quickly as improvements in corporate earnings, and then slightly later, as executive compensation. A few pieces came across my desk last week, hailing the ability of the corporate sector to bounce back from the recent economic downturn even though revenues have continued to suffer and employment has been steeply cut. Why is this a surprise? Where else could the money have gone? Labor compensation? It is truly mind-numbing that a moment after a temporary surge of trillions of dollars, borrowed and tossed out of a helicopter (though to specific corporations and private beneficiaries), analysts would hail a subsequent improvement in corporate results as evidence of “resilience.”
What matters is sustainability, and unfortunately, it is clear that credit continues to collapse. Banks are contracting their loan portfolios at a record rate, according to the latest FDIC Quarterly Banking Profile. Even so, new delinquencies continue to accelerate faster than loan loss reserves. Tier 1 capital looked quite good last quarter, as one would expect from the combination of a large new issuance of bank securities, combined with an easing of accounting rules to allow “substantial discretion” with respect to credit losses. The list of problem institutions is still rising exponentially. Overall, earnings and capital ratios have enjoyed a reprieve in the past couple of quarters, but delinquencies have not, and all evidence points to an acceleration as we move into 2010.
Urgent Policy Implications
From a policy standpoint, it is effectively too late to forestall further foreclosures absent explicit losses to creditors. The best policy option now is to make sure that the second wave does not result in a debasement of the U.S. dollar. The way to do that is to require three things:
First, the FDIC should be given regulatory authority to take non-bank financials into conservatorship the way they should have been able to do with Bear Stearns and Lehman. If this authority had existed in 2008, Bear's bondholders would not now stand to get 100% of their money back, with interest, as they presently do, and Lehman's disorganized liquidation would have been completely unnecessary. As I've noted before, the problem with Lehman was not that it went bankrupt, but that it went bankrupt in a disorganized way. If the FDIC had authority over insolvent non-bank financials and bank holding companies, it could wipe out equity and an appropriate amount of bondholder capital, and sell the fully-functioning residual to an acquirer, as is typically done with failing banks, without any loss to depositors or customers.
Second, bank capital requirements should be altered to require a substantial portion of bank debt to be of a form that automatically converts to equity in the event of capital inadequacy. This would force losses onto bondholders, rather than onto taxpayers. This policy adjustment is urgent – we have perhaps a few months to get this right.
Finally, Congress should be clear that government funds will be available only to protect the interests of depositors, not bondholders. Specifically, any funds provided by the government should be contingent on the ability to exert a senior claim to bondholders in the event of subsequent bankruptcy, even if a category is created to allow those funds to be counted as “capital” for purposes of satisfying capital requirements prior to such bankruptcy. Government-provided capital should be subordinate only to depositor claims, if equity and bondholder capital ultimately proves insufficient to meet those obligations.
Since early 2008, beginning with the provision of non-recourse funding in the Bear Stearns debacle, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury have repeatedly allocated or implicitly obligated public funds to defend the bondholders of mismanaged financial companies. This has included the outright and non-recourse purchase of nearly a trillion dollars in mortgage securities that have no explicit guarantee by the U.S. government. By purchasing these securities outright (rather than through a well-defined repurchase agreement), the Fed is effectively obligating the U.S. government to either guarantee them or to absorb any future losses.
Aside from the fraction of bailout funding that was specifically allocated by Congress through legislation, these actions represent an unconstitutional breach into enumerated spending powers that are the domain of the elected members of Congress alone. The issue here is not whether the Fed should be independent from political influence. The issue is the constitutionality of the Fed's actions. The discretion that it has exerted over the past two years crosses the line into prerogatives reserved for Congress. That line needs to be clarified sooner rather than later.
Emphatically, the trillions of dollars spent over the past year were not in the interest of protecting bank depositors or the general public. They went to protect bank bondholders. Instead of taking appropriate losses on those bonds (which financed reckless mortgage lending), those bonds are happily priced near their face value, for the benefit of private individuals, thanks to an equivalent issuance of U.S. Treasury debt. But that's not enough. Outside of a very narrow set of institutions that are subject to compensation limits, just watch how much of the public's money – which benefitted several major investment banks following a very direct route – gets allocated to Wall Street bonuses in the next few weeks.
Market Climate
As of last week, the Market Climate for stocks remained characterized by unfavorable valuations and mixed market action. The market remains significantly overbought on an intermediate-term basis, and we've seen increasing divergences from breadth, small and mid-cap stocks, trading volume, and other internals, which have lagged the most recent advance in the S&P 500 and other cap-weighted indices.
The prospect of a debt-repayment “standstill” from Dubai prompted some weakness in foreign markets that spilled over to the U.S. on Friday. This was interesting given that David Faber reported the issue on CNBC on Wednesday, to no reaction. Importantly, the payment difficulties do not stem from oil revenues, but largely from tourism and financial activity, as those are Dubai's chief industries (Dubai is home to the tallest building and the largest man-made islands in the world, for example). From that standpoint, it is difficult to imagine much in the way of contagion as a result of Dubai's difficulties.
Whatever shock the market will get from left field is likely to come from larger financial or geopolitical risks. The market for credit default swaps bears watching, but thus far we haven't observed spikes to indicate that something major is imminent. Unfortunately, as I noted earlier, investors have earned an “F” for vigilance in recent years, so our lead time on new difficulties may be shorter than we might like.
In any event, I'm pleased with the overall behavior of our stock holdings, and I expect that we'll have plenty of opportunity to increase our exposure to market fluctuations at more appropriate valuations. Presently, we've got a small amount of exposure to market fluctuations, but not enough to cause any material difficulties if the market experiences some trouble. The largest source of day-to-day fluctuations remains the difference in performance between the stocks we hold long and the indices we use to hedge. That source of risk has also been the primary contributor to returns over the life of the Fund.
In bonds, the Market Climate was characterized last week by moderately unfavorable yield levels and generally favorable yield pressures. We saw a good example of how the market is inclined to respond to fresh credit concerns last week, with upward pressure on the U.S. dollar and U.S. Treasuries, and downward pressure on foreign currencies and commodities. While I continue to believe that the dollar faces substantial risk of further erosion in its exchange value, as well as a near doubling of the CPI over the coming decade or so (both reflecting the massive increase in U.S. government liabilities in recent years), those prospects are not likely to emerge until risk-aversion about credit default materially abates. Credit concerns typically create a spike in demand for default-free assets such as U.S. government liabilities, so even though there is a much larger float than is likely to be sustained over time without inflation as the ultimate outcome, credit concerns tend to support the value of these liabilities and hence mutes immediate inflation pressures (essentially, monetary velocity declines as these liabilities are sought as a default-free store of value).
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Happy Thanksgiving!!
Although there is much to keep me on my guard, I feel grateful for my wonderful family, good friends, the land we live on, my ancestors, and those who have not yet made themselves known to me. Wishing the best that life has to offer, to all.
Fubsy
Fubsy
Its Turkey Day...Don't be a...errr Ostrich
Here you go folks. A couple good head out of the sand articles for your Thanksgiving pleasure.
Fubsy
Mish Shedlock, Global Economic Analysis: Dubai Defaults, Deflation in Action –Watched Pot Theory Revisited.
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/11/dubai-defaults-deflation-in-action.html
Mish gives a killer summary of the risks of debt defaults across the developed world. Things are not so rosy in the financial sector.
Barry Ritholtz, The Big {icture: Fed Reserve Endorses Crony Communism for Wealthy
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/11/federal-reserve-endorses-communism-for-the-wealthy/
Another review of the powers that control the flow of money, and their self-serving ways.
Fubsy
Mish Shedlock, Global Economic Analysis: Dubai Defaults, Deflation in Action –Watched Pot Theory Revisited.
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/11/dubai-defaults-deflation-in-action.html
Mish gives a killer summary of the risks of debt defaults across the developed world. Things are not so rosy in the financial sector.
Barry Ritholtz, The Big {icture: Fed Reserve Endorses Crony Communism for Wealthy
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/11/federal-reserve-endorses-communism-for-the-wealthy/
Another review of the powers that control the flow of money, and their self-serving ways.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Mid Week Links
Hey Folks!
Here are a few stories to help you burn some calories as you gorge yourselves on the bounty of this Earth. If it pleases you, contact a congress person and support Auditting the Federal Reserve. Links to your reps on the right along with a handy dandy ready made letter for your empowerment and pleasure.
Fubsy
Randall Forsythe, The Wall Street journal via Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture: The Galley Slaves Aren’t Feeling It
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/11/the-galley-slaves-arent-feeling-it/
Excellent piece on the world of economics. Highly readable.
Barry Ritholtz, The Big Picture: Treasury DKs Goldman/Fannie/BRK Tax Credit Scam.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/11/treasury-dks-goldmanfanniebrk-tax-credit-scam
Barry always gets it down cold. In this piece he goes after Goldman, and particularly Warren Buffet, and calls him out as not so much the good American that we are lead to believe he is. Great read. There is so much deceit going on relative to big money protecting their own ass at the expense of the American public and the overall health of the economy that I believe it is imperative for the public to wake up and become informed lest we arise one morning to the lack of a middle class.
George Washington, Zero Hedge: Senator Drogan: Modern Day Bank Robbers
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/senator-dorgan-we-essentially-have-had-modern-day-bank-robbers-and-theres-been-no-accountabi
Self-explanatory: The main issue for the United States losing civil liberties, IMO.
George Washington, Zero Hedge: Instead of Fixing the Economy or Creating Jobs for Americans, Obama will Spend the Money on Iraq and Afghanistan
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/instead-fixing-us-economy-or-creating-jobs-americans-obama-will-spend-money-afghanistan-and-
What are the policies of the White House aimed at fixing? Interesting perspective.
Karl Deninger, The Market Ticker: Health Care Farce Voted Up Last Night.
http://market-ticker.org/archives/1599-Health-Care-FARCE-Voted-Up-Last-Night.html
Interesting perspective on health care reform. I don’t agree with all of it, but recognize the logic in many of Karl’s arguments, as uncomfortable as they may be.
Karl Deninger, The Market Ticker: More Extortion by the Banks
http://market-ticker.org/archives/1597-More-Extortion-By-The-Banks.html
It would do my heart good if the Too Big To Fail Banks were broken up and Glass Steagall was reinstated with Sarbannes Oxley accounting rules enforced. The big money center banks are bringing ruin to this country without conscience, IMO.
Bill Fleckensein, MSN Money Central: Obama team ignores Volcker at its peril.
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/ContrarianChronicles/obama-team-ignores-volcker-at-its-peril.aspx?OCID=eml_msnnl_6004.14.2.14&REFCD=emmsnnl_6004.14.2.14
There are very few things I like about the Federal Reserve, but Paul Volcker is one of them. In the 80s he took a very unpopular route toward raising interest rates in the face of runaway inflation to curb America’s runaway spending binge, and bring the economy into balance. It paid off, and largely due to his unpopular frugality the U.S. had a solid foundation from which it was able to enter a twenty year cycle of prosperity. Read on.
Here are a few stories to help you burn some calories as you gorge yourselves on the bounty of this Earth. If it pleases you, contact a congress person and support Auditting the Federal Reserve. Links to your reps on the right along with a handy dandy ready made letter for your empowerment and pleasure.
Fubsy
Randall Forsythe, The Wall Street journal via Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture: The Galley Slaves Aren’t Feeling It
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/11/the-galley-slaves-arent-feeling-it/
Excellent piece on the world of economics. Highly readable.
Barry Ritholtz, The Big Picture: Treasury DKs Goldman/Fannie/BRK Tax Credit Scam.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/11/treasury-dks-goldmanfanniebrk-tax-credit-scam
Barry always gets it down cold. In this piece he goes after Goldman, and particularly Warren Buffet, and calls him out as not so much the good American that we are lead to believe he is. Great read. There is so much deceit going on relative to big money protecting their own ass at the expense of the American public and the overall health of the economy that I believe it is imperative for the public to wake up and become informed lest we arise one morning to the lack of a middle class.
George Washington, Zero Hedge: Senator Drogan: Modern Day Bank Robbers
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/senator-dorgan-we-essentially-have-had-modern-day-bank-robbers-and-theres-been-no-accountabi
Self-explanatory: The main issue for the United States losing civil liberties, IMO.
George Washington, Zero Hedge: Instead of Fixing the Economy or Creating Jobs for Americans, Obama will Spend the Money on Iraq and Afghanistan
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/instead-fixing-us-economy-or-creating-jobs-americans-obama-will-spend-money-afghanistan-and-
What are the policies of the White House aimed at fixing? Interesting perspective.
Karl Deninger, The Market Ticker: Health Care Farce Voted Up Last Night.
http://market-ticker.org/archives/1599-Health-Care-FARCE-Voted-Up-Last-Night.html
Interesting perspective on health care reform. I don’t agree with all of it, but recognize the logic in many of Karl’s arguments, as uncomfortable as they may be.
Karl Deninger, The Market Ticker: More Extortion by the Banks
http://market-ticker.org/archives/1597-More-Extortion-By-The-Banks.html
It would do my heart good if the Too Big To Fail Banks were broken up and Glass Steagall was reinstated with Sarbannes Oxley accounting rules enforced. The big money center banks are bringing ruin to this country without conscience, IMO.
Bill Fleckensein, MSN Money Central: Obama team ignores Volcker at its peril.
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/ContrarianChronicles/obama-team-ignores-volcker-at-its-peril.aspx?OCID=eml_msnnl_6004.14.2.14&REFCD=emmsnnl_6004.14.2.14
There are very few things I like about the Federal Reserve, but Paul Volcker is one of them. In the 80s he took a very unpopular route toward raising interest rates in the face of runaway inflation to curb America’s runaway spending binge, and bring the economy into balance. It paid off, and largely due to his unpopular frugality the U.S. had a solid foundation from which it was able to enter a twenty year cycle of prosperity. Read on.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Is America Finally Standing up To Wall Street?
This from Zero Hedge. A look into the democratic party's increasing unease with the President's economic team. All I can say is it's about f'n time.
Is America Finally Starting to Stand Up To Wall Street?
Submitted by George Washington on 11/21/2009 00:09 -0500
→ Washington's Blog.
Are the American people finally starting to stand up to Wall Street?
Shareholder Revolt
Some of Goldman Sach's biggest shareholders are demanding that executive compensation be reduced. As the Wall Street Journal notes:
Their complaints in private conversations with the company and at analyst meetings show how anger over its big-money culture is spilling into the ranks of investors who typically shy away from debates over Wall Street pay.
Protests
There were the protests outside of the Bankers Association meeting in Chicago. See this, this, this, this, this and this.
If you don't think that more - bigger - protests are coming, you haven't been paying attention.
Debtor's Revolt
Debtors are revolting against exorbitant interest rates and fees and other aggressive tactics by the too big to fail banks. See this, this, and this.
Congresswoman Kaptur advises her constituents facing foreclosure to demand that the original mortgage papers be produced. She says that - if the bank can't produce the mortgage papers - then the homeowner can stay in the house.
Portfolio manager and investment advisor Marshall Auerback argues that a debtor's revolt would be a good thing.
And even popular personal finance advisor Suze Orman is highlighting the debtors revolt phenomenon on her national tv show.
Congress Is Starting to Get the Message
The American people are shouting so loud at their congress members and Senators, that even some of the most pro-Wall Street congressman are starting to get it.
For example, the Congressional Black Caucus has been hearing so much about how congress is failing to address the crisis of unemployment from their constituents, that the CBC delayed Barney Frank's proposed financial reform.
The House Financial Services Committee received so many phone calls from constituents that it approved the Ron Paul/Alan Grayson bill to audit the Fed and defeated the trojan horse alternate bill written by Mel Watt. Indeed, I have heard from congressional sources that the only calls to support the Watt alternate bill were from the Fed itself. And see this.
The Committee also approved Congressman Grayson's bill to rein in foreign currency swaps.
Both Geithner and Summers are coming under increasing pressure to resign due to their being in bed with Wall Street.
Even Bernanke's re-appointment is no longer certain.
And Obama's approval ratings have now dipped below 50%, largely due to his mishandling of the economic crisis.
As Congressman Peter DeFazio notes:
There were a lot of Democrats who were "upset and nervous with" the handling of the economy by the administration.
"It is pretty embarrassing for a Democratic administration and a Democratic Congress to be identified with total attention to Wall Street and nothing for Main Street and jobs," he said. "There are a lot of Democrats who... want to see something more effective done to create employment."
DeFazio insisted that President Obama and, by extension, the Democratic Party were hampered by Geithner's policies for economic recovery. He pointed to the inability of the administration to spur small business lending and the lack of effective TARP oversight as particularly egregious examples of mismanagement. More than anything else, the Oregon Democrat deemed it untenable for the president to continue employing his current economic team given the taint of Wall Street that clings to many of those advisers.
"I have had a number of people say to me, 'I feel the same way you do but I'm not going to say it.' People are worried it will rub off on the president who still enjoys popularity," he said. "I tell them I still support the president. I just think he is being poorly served by his economic team."
"The truth of the matter," DeFazio added, "is that we have not changed the way the money is being used. It is not being used for the purpose it was supposed to be used for. We are not creating jobs and we have not aggressively taken on the culture of Wall Street"...
One of his chief concerns was that the president appeared enamored with the lords of finance. "The administration has, thus far, not threaded the needle here," he said. "They have taken care of Wall Street but not the rest of the country."
Are the American people are finally starting to awaken?
We've been down this road before
Shown worse devils to the door
Throw off our chains of slavery
Now is the time to set ourselves free
And reclaim our liberty ...
They bought the politicians and the news
They've got all the weapons (which they like to use)
But they are few and we're billions strong
We are the giant ... been sleeping for too long
Time to wake up and sing our victory song
- The Voice
The elites hate to acknowledge it, but when large numbers of ordinary people are moved to action, it changes the narrow political world where the elites call the shots. Inside accounts reveal the extent to which Johnson and Nixon’s conduct of the Vietnam War was constrained by the huge anti-war movement. It was the civil rights movement, not compelling arguments, that convinced members of Congress to end legal racial discrimination.
- PhD Economist Dean Baker
Anger is a great force. If you control it, it can be transmuted into a power which can move the whole world.
- Sivananda
The power of an aroused public is unbeatable.
- Dr. Helen Caldicott
The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.
-Ferdinand Foch
In times of danger large groups rise to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, courage and sacrifice . . . Mankind will be refashioned and history rewritten when this law is understood and obeyed.
-Helen Keller
You let one ant stand up to us - then they all might stand up. Those puny little ants outnumber us a 100 to one. And if they ever figure that out, there goes our way of life.
- Hopper (a grasshopper who is the leader of the gang of thugs who are stealing from the other bugs, speaking to fellow grasshoppers in the Disney/Pixar movie A Bug's Life)
Is America Finally Starting to Stand Up To Wall Street?
Submitted by George Washington on 11/21/2009 00:09 -0500
→ Washington's Blog.
Are the American people finally starting to stand up to Wall Street?
Shareholder Revolt
Some of Goldman Sach's biggest shareholders are demanding that executive compensation be reduced. As the Wall Street Journal notes:
Their complaints in private conversations with the company and at analyst meetings show how anger over its big-money culture is spilling into the ranks of investors who typically shy away from debates over Wall Street pay.
Protests
There were the protests outside of the Bankers Association meeting in Chicago. See this, this, this, this, this and this.
If you don't think that more - bigger - protests are coming, you haven't been paying attention.
Debtor's Revolt
Debtors are revolting against exorbitant interest rates and fees and other aggressive tactics by the too big to fail banks. See this, this, and this.
Congresswoman Kaptur advises her constituents facing foreclosure to demand that the original mortgage papers be produced. She says that - if the bank can't produce the mortgage papers - then the homeowner can stay in the house.
Portfolio manager and investment advisor Marshall Auerback argues that a debtor's revolt would be a good thing.
And even popular personal finance advisor Suze Orman is highlighting the debtors revolt phenomenon on her national tv show.
Congress Is Starting to Get the Message
The American people are shouting so loud at their congress members and Senators, that even some of the most pro-Wall Street congressman are starting to get it.
For example, the Congressional Black Caucus has been hearing so much about how congress is failing to address the crisis of unemployment from their constituents, that the CBC delayed Barney Frank's proposed financial reform.
The House Financial Services Committee received so many phone calls from constituents that it approved the Ron Paul/Alan Grayson bill to audit the Fed and defeated the trojan horse alternate bill written by Mel Watt. Indeed, I have heard from congressional sources that the only calls to support the Watt alternate bill were from the Fed itself. And see this.
The Committee also approved Congressman Grayson's bill to rein in foreign currency swaps.
Both Geithner and Summers are coming under increasing pressure to resign due to their being in bed with Wall Street.
Even Bernanke's re-appointment is no longer certain.
And Obama's approval ratings have now dipped below 50%, largely due to his mishandling of the economic crisis.
As Congressman Peter DeFazio notes:
There were a lot of Democrats who were "upset and nervous with" the handling of the economy by the administration.
"It is pretty embarrassing for a Democratic administration and a Democratic Congress to be identified with total attention to Wall Street and nothing for Main Street and jobs," he said. "There are a lot of Democrats who... want to see something more effective done to create employment."
DeFazio insisted that President Obama and, by extension, the Democratic Party were hampered by Geithner's policies for economic recovery. He pointed to the inability of the administration to spur small business lending and the lack of effective TARP oversight as particularly egregious examples of mismanagement. More than anything else, the Oregon Democrat deemed it untenable for the president to continue employing his current economic team given the taint of Wall Street that clings to many of those advisers.
"I have had a number of people say to me, 'I feel the same way you do but I'm not going to say it.' People are worried it will rub off on the president who still enjoys popularity," he said. "I tell them I still support the president. I just think he is being poorly served by his economic team."
"The truth of the matter," DeFazio added, "is that we have not changed the way the money is being used. It is not being used for the purpose it was supposed to be used for. We are not creating jobs and we have not aggressively taken on the culture of Wall Street"...
One of his chief concerns was that the president appeared enamored with the lords of finance. "The administration has, thus far, not threaded the needle here," he said. "They have taken care of Wall Street but not the rest of the country."
Are the American people are finally starting to awaken?
We've been down this road before
Shown worse devils to the door
Throw off our chains of slavery
Now is the time to set ourselves free
And reclaim our liberty ...
They bought the politicians and the news
They've got all the weapons (which they like to use)
But they are few and we're billions strong
We are the giant ... been sleeping for too long
Time to wake up and sing our victory song
- The Voice
The elites hate to acknowledge it, but when large numbers of ordinary people are moved to action, it changes the narrow political world where the elites call the shots. Inside accounts reveal the extent to which Johnson and Nixon’s conduct of the Vietnam War was constrained by the huge anti-war movement. It was the civil rights movement, not compelling arguments, that convinced members of Congress to end legal racial discrimination.
- PhD Economist Dean Baker
Anger is a great force. If you control it, it can be transmuted into a power which can move the whole world.
- Sivananda
The power of an aroused public is unbeatable.
- Dr. Helen Caldicott
The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.
-Ferdinand Foch
In times of danger large groups rise to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, courage and sacrifice . . . Mankind will be refashioned and history rewritten when this law is understood and obeyed.
-Helen Keller
You let one ant stand up to us - then they all might stand up. Those puny little ants outnumber us a 100 to one. And if they ever figure that out, there goes our way of life.
- Hopper (a grasshopper who is the leader of the gang of thugs who are stealing from the other bugs, speaking to fellow grasshoppers in the Disney/Pixar movie A Bug's Life)
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Shorting the Long Term US Treasury (TLT)
Hey Folks,
I've been watching TLT (long term US treasury)and TBT (double short long term treasury) for awhile. I bought a couple hundred shares of TBT today for a couple reasons.
1) The 200, 50 and 20 day averages are all now sloping downward signifying a strong case for a bear market in this asset class.
2) TLT has bounced for a few days and is coming up against the 20 day average, which has rebuffed it twice since the averages bgan their unified downward slope. I think there are good odds it will continue to do that for the time being.
3) If I'm wrong, my stop loss is less than 1% away on TLT (94.80) which would be 2% loss on TBT (or appx 1/4% to my account). On the reward side TLT could easily drop 5% from here, which allows me a 5 to 1 reqard to risk ratio. A lovely set up.
I will add to the position if TLT forms a swing day high, which it could be setting up for. Notice how it went higher today than it has in it's current up swing. If it were to close right now, the low would be 93.48. If it closed lower than that in the next couple days without breaking today's high, it tells me that demand is drying up, and supply is increasing. A good time to short, with an easy stop above the 20 day average.
Here's the chart.
Shorting the above (TLT) buying TBT (double short TLT)
Fubsy
I've been watching TLT (long term US treasury)and TBT (double short long term treasury) for awhile. I bought a couple hundred shares of TBT today for a couple reasons.
1) The 200, 50 and 20 day averages are all now sloping downward signifying a strong case for a bear market in this asset class.
2) TLT has bounced for a few days and is coming up against the 20 day average, which has rebuffed it twice since the averages bgan their unified downward slope. I think there are good odds it will continue to do that for the time being.
3) If I'm wrong, my stop loss is less than 1% away on TLT (94.80) which would be 2% loss on TBT (or appx 1/4% to my account). On the reward side TLT could easily drop 5% from here, which allows me a 5 to 1 reqard to risk ratio. A lovely set up.
I will add to the position if TLT forms a swing day high, which it could be setting up for. Notice how it went higher today than it has in it's current up swing. If it were to close right now, the low would be 93.48. If it closed lower than that in the next couple days without breaking today's high, it tells me that demand is drying up, and supply is increasing. A good time to short, with an easy stop above the 20 day average.
Here's the chart.
Shorting the above (TLT) buying TBT (double short TLT)
Fubsy
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